The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [201]
The eye widened, and he made the noise again, his head straining upward urgently. I felt a shudder go through Jamie. It was enough to raise the hair on the back of my own neck, but I disregarded it, pushing the candlestick into Jamie’s hands.
“Hold the light for me.”
I sank to my knees, too late feeling the liquid ooze through the fabric of my skirt. The man lay in his own filth, and had been lying so for quite some time; the floor was thick with slime and wet. He was naked, covered by no more than a linen blanket, and as I turned it back, I glimpsed ulcerated sores amid the smears of ordure.
It was clear enough what ailed Mr. Beardsley; one side of his face sagged grotesquely, the eyelid drooping, and both the arm and the leg on the near side of his body splayed limp and dead, the joints left knobby and weirdly distorted by the falling away of the muscle around them. He snuffled and bleated, tongue poking and slobbering from the corner of his mouth in his vain but urgent attempts at speech.
“Hush,” I said to him. “Don’t talk; it’s all right now.”
I took the wrist to check his pulse; the flesh moved loosely on the bones of his arm, with not the slightest twitch of response to my touch.
“A stroke,” I said softly to Jamie. “An apoplexy, you call it.” I put my hand on Beardsley’s chest, to offer the comfort of touch.
“Don’t worry,” I said to him. “We’ve come to help.” I spoke reassuringly, though even as I said the words, I wondered what help was possible. Well, cleanliness and warmth at least; it was nearly as cold in the loft as it was outside, and his chest was chilly and pebbled with gooseflesh among the bushy hair.
The ladder creaked heavily, and I turned to see the outline of Mrs. Beardsley’s fluffy head and heavy shoulders, silhouetted by the light from the kitchen below.
“How long has he been like this?” I asked sharply.
“Perhapth . . . a month,” she said, after a pause. “I could not move him,” she said, defensive. “He ith too heavy.”
That was plainly true. However . . .
“Why is he up here?” Jamie demanded. “If ye didna move him, how did he get here?” He turned, shedding the light of the candle over the loft. There was little here that would draw a man; an old straw mattress, a few scattered tools, and bits of household rubbish. The light shone on Mrs. Beardsley’s face, turning her pale blue eyes to ice.
“He wath . . . chathing me,” she said faintly.
“What?” Jamie strode over to the ladder, and bending down, seized her by the arm, helping her—rather against her will, it seemed—to clamber up the rest of the way into the loft.
“What d’ye mean, chasing you?” he demanded. She hunched her shoulders, looking round and homely as a cookie jar in her bundled shawls.
“He thtruck me,” she said simply. “I came up the ladder to get away from him, but he followed. I tried to hide back here in the thadows, and he came, but then . . . he fell. And . . . he could not get up.” She shrugged again.
Jamie held the candlestick near her face. She gave a small nervous smile, eyes darting from me to Jamie, and I saw that the lisp was caused by the fact that her front teeth were broken—snapped off at an angle, just beyond the gums. A small scar ran through her upper lip; another showed white in the hairs of one eyebrow.
A horrible noise came from the man on the floor—a furious squeal of what sounded like protest—and she flinched, eyes shut tight in reflexive dread.
“Mmphm,” Jamie said, glancing from her to her husband. “Aye. Well. Fetch up some water, ma’am, and ye will. Another candle and some fresh rags as well,” he called after her departing back as she hastened toward the ladder, only too glad to be given an excuse to leave.
“Jamie—bring back the light, will you?”
He came and stood beside me, holding the candle so it shed its glow on